Will There Be a Democratic Election in Egypt of 2018?

Millions of Muslims gathered via the social networks and took to the streets in order to protest and fight against the dictatorial regime of the president Hosni Mubarak. Those events were part of the Arab spring which exploded in the Middle East at the end of December 2010.

The Arab Spring was like a domino effect which hit each and every Muslim country and it had to come to Egypt as well. The coup led to ousted President Hosni Mubarak and a new presidential election law. The old law was based on "the winner takes it all" election style and was required to be changed as part of the revolution. The seats in the parliament split to one third of seats that wеre elected by the traditional voting and the other two thirds were elected by the proportional representation.

Finally the presidential election took a place in 2012. The results were quite similar in all of the three rounds and led to the nomination of Mohamed Morsi, Head of Justice and Freedom Party. The party associates itself with the Muslim Brotherhood, a transnational Sunni Islamist organization, which is designated as a terror organization in many countries.

In 2013, another coup raised by the Egyptian people in order to over throw Morsi's regime. Morsi didn't want to give up his place, therefore the Egyptian military chief General, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, led military coup against him and forced to his resignation. As a result, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Hamdeen Sabahi were the two main candidates for the position of the next Egyptian president, therefore there was no needed for a second round of voting. Eventually, the results of the voting appointed Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to the Egyptian president in 2014.

The response in the Arab world arrived sooner than later. Turkey and Qatar criticized Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as he is not entitled to be president as he took over the government via military coup while Mursi is the legitimate president. The Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, denied the nomination of El-Sisi: "Western countries and the rest of the world could not call it coup, they had even sent congratulatory messages to the one who has come up after the coup and was elected in the so-called election…Such congratulations have no meaning, because we can’t congratulate an administration resulting from a coup d’état".

On the other hand, Saudi Arabia supported the regime of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi because they were against the Muslim Brotherhood as well and designated them as a terror organization. The Saudi King congrtulated El-sisi: "On this day of history and in a new stage of the march of Egypt, a country of true Islam and Arabism, I have the pleasure to congratulate you on the kind confidence bestowed on you by the people who entrusted you to carry their hopes, aspirations and dreams for a better future".

After the death of the King Abdalla in 2015, the new Saudi king, Salman, wanted to build a coalition of Sunni countries against Iran. Therefore he built a coalition which includes Turkey, Qatar and Egypt, which are opponents to each other. However, Saudi Arabia changed her favor from El-Sisi and became more pro Muslim Brotherhood as it wanted to keep Turkey and Qatar to fight on its side.

However, the relations between Saudi Arabia were strong and now even getting stronger, since the nomination of the new Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Egypt support Saudi Arabia with their fight against Iran in Yemen, and last year Egypt joined Saudi Arabia to boycott Qatar from the reason being that Qatar didn’t want to hand to Saudi Arabia the two red sea islands to Saudi Arabia. Nowadays there is a new plan to connect Egypt and Saudi Arabia by bridge and causeway, which will make easier access and blossoming commerce between the two countries.  

El-Sisi - End or Second Term?

During 4 years in the office, El-Sisi did some magnificent changes in Egypt and made it a better place to live. El-Sisi has improved significantly the economy and security in the country, from a very poor economy into blossoming one like it used to be. The economic reform made by raising the fuel rates, increasing taxes and cutting of the subsidies for food and energy which the government has spent for decades on millions of people that live in poverty.

Furthermore, El-Sisi launched projects in order to develop the country by improving transportations and roads, digging a new Suez Canal and building new seaport in order to increase the commerce and the revenue of Egypt. Other projects were associates with rebuilding houses and getting rid of the slums, even building a new city near the capital to ease the overpopulation in Cairo. Those projects increased the workplaces and the salaries of the poor people.      

Changes in the energy of Egypt also were required to be done as there was an enormous lack of energy productions while there is a growing consumption of energy. The first step that El-Sisi made was signing on a contract with General Electric in order to provide more energy and power as a temporary solution. The next step was an investment of more than 6 billion dollars in oil companies in order to provide energy on regular basis.       

The changes in the country were not associates only by developing the country and the economy but also were about religious and society change. El-Sisi called to moderate the Islam and respect the other religious in the country as well. Surveys show that El-Sisi did an outstanding changes and he is a great leader for Egypt. Therefore, the Copts, the Christian Egyptians, are supporting El-Sisi and more than 80% of the Sunni population is supporting him as well.

After El-Sisi have been being in the office for the last 4 years, now, he is running for his second term. In the next coming elections, El-Sisi will need to compete against only once candidate, Moussa Mostafa Moussa.

Moussa Mostafa Moussa is the chairman of Ghad Party and the president of the Egyptian Council of Arab Tribes. Moussa is considered a pro El-Sisi politician and decided to run for the presidency just one day before the deadline of accepted applicants.   

The forthcoming election will be based on two rounds of voting instead of three. The first round voting will start between the 16th to the 18th of March and the second on round of voting between 19th to the 21st of April. The new president will be announced in the beginning of May. The candidate must hold Egyptian nationality and no less than 40 years old. Furthermore, each candidate will need to collect at least 25,000 supporting signatures from citizens in 15 governorates or be recommended by at least 20 elected parliamentarians.

Both El-Sisi and Moussa were met those conditions requested by The National Electoral Commission in order to be eligible applicant. El-Sisi was recommended and recognized by 549 members of Egyptian Parliament and more than 161,707 signatures. On the same time, Moussa was successfully achieved recommendations and recognitions by 26 elected parliamentarians members, and got more than 47,000 signatures.

Democratic or Corrupted Regime?

The conditions were not reasonable and extremely difficult to achieve by few candidates such as Mohamed Anwar al-Sadat and Ahmed Shafik and led to their withdrawal from the candidacy. But that is not the only reason they were forced to give up of their applications. They were considered an obstacle for the election. As a result, they called to boycott the election by saying that it is not fair and not a democratic election.

Another significant proof in the election affair which shows the regime as undemocratic was the case of a candidate's arrest, as he wanted to run for the election. Sami Anan, a former military chief of staff, announced that he wishes to apply his candidacy; however he was not successful and was accused of violating regulations of running for the election without prior permission from the army. This case led to withdrawal of another candidate, Khaled Ali, a human rights lawyer.    

As it seems, the current regime makes it difficult for new candidates to run in the elections. It has a clear agenda to keep El-Sisi in power, who brought Egypt back to the old style of election "The Winner Takes it All". More likely it seems that El-Sisi will win the election again.

It looks like the regime of El-Sisi does not only limit candidates to run for the presidential election, but also abuses human rights in the country. Many journalists who criticized the regime found themselves behind bars and the regime was blocked access to several websites as well. These actions led to hurting the right of freedom of speech and expression in the country and made the people of Egypt to wonder if there is still hope for Egypt to be a democratic country with the regime of El-Sisi 2018 in power.